68 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 



Bennett was also of the opinion that "Daines 

 Barrington was the last writer of any note who 

 denied the American origin of the turkey, and he 

 seems to have been actuated more by a love of 

 paradox than by any conviction of the truth of 

 his theory. Since the publication of his Mis- 

 cellanies, in 1781, the knowledge that has been 

 obtained of the existence of large flocks of tur- 

 keys, perfectly wild, clothed in their natural 

 plumage, and displaying their native habits, 

 spread over a large portion of North America, 

 together with the certainty of their non-existence 

 in a similar state in any other part of the globe, 

 have been admitted on all hands to be decisive 

 of the question." (p. 210). 



I have already cited the evidence above to 

 prove that it was Oviedo who first published an 

 accurate description of the wild turkey, — his 

 work being published at Toledo in about the 

 year 1526, at which time the turkey had already 



"It is somewhat singular that so noble a bird, and in America at least 

 by no means a rare one, should have remained unfigured until within five 

 years of the present time; all the plates in European works being mani- 

 festly derived from domestic specimens." Bennett was aware that 

 Audubon's Plates were published about this time, for he mentions them. 

 He also was well informed in matters regarding the crossing of the wild 

 male turkey with the female domestic one, and with the improvement 

 in the breed thus obtained. 



